Back in 2005, John Roberts said his job as a justice was "to call balls and strikes," like in baseball. This was the most insidious statement ever uttered by a SCOTUS nominee, as today's Sotomayor hearing showed.

Roberts meant that, you know, he is a blank slate completely dispassionate and free of biases. Like umpires! And, as we all know, umpires always accurately call balls and strikes, based on the official strike zone as described in the rule book.

The fact that Roberts made such a clear and easy to comprehend sports metaphor instead of saying something specific and useful about his "philosophy" meant that half the Senators blathering on at Sonia Sotomayor in today's hearings felt compelled to use the same crappy sports analogy, except John Cornyn, who called judges "quarterbacks."

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This is all a very compelling reason to believe that a wise Latina woman would probably make a better Senator than another old white man.

Our own Mike Byhoff put together this compilation of great rhetoric from the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.